IDs below species don't update Observation Taxon until confirmed by a 2nd identifier

I have been noticing that when an observation is improved by an identifier who takes the community ID from, say, kingdom, or class, all the way to subspecies or variety, the community ID stays at the higher level until a 2nd identifier confirms the ID.

Here is an example:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/3255009

If I agree that this is artemisia, then the community ID will go all the way to Artemisia campestris ssp. caudata. But for now it rests at Kingdom.

This isn’t all that common of a situation, but I’ve noticed it a number of times. Maybe it wouldn’t be that complicated to fix?

1 Like

Well, the community ID should stay at that level, but I agree that the “title” of the observation should change as it would if the ID was made at species instead of subspecies. You can see the difference between the two behaviour in my observation here (the title is X. orientale, since there are no open disagreements, but the community ID box says Xanthium, because that’s what the true community ID is):
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/33597746

The kind of behaviour you are describing also happens with an ID of genus:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/32749309

1 Like

yes, thank for you that correction. I was not precise with my language. The title of the observation should change to reflect the leading ID.

My concern is that in searches the observation in this situation will still show up at the higher level, whether it be genus or kingdom. It’s arguably less of a concern at the genus level, but the observation I linked to had been (and still is) stuck at Plantae for 3 years despite having a subspecies level ID.

My understanding is that this is working as designed. But, see this feature request: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/leading-subspecies-ids-should-change-the-obs-taxon-like-leading-ids-of-other-ranks/139